Spaghetti in Red Wine Sauce

October 17, 2012

Here we are again, pasta. My other two dishes this week are quick weeknight meals. This red wine sauce is a labor of love.

Actually, it requires no labor, just a long cooking time.

But the flavors that develop from one bottle of red wine and such simple ingredients are so special they deserve to be the center of attention.

This is my attempt to recreate Mike’s family’s favorite red wine sauce. I think I came pretty close.

I wonder if other food bloggers have felt pressure to try and recreate a favorite food. I think people think that because I am okay at cooking, that means I have an extraordinary palate. Sorry to say I don’t think I have a great sense of taste.

I will always drink wine and think it tastes like wine, not charcoal or apple.

But, that is beside the point, because no matter how developed your palate is, this sauce is still amazing.

If me and my underdeveloped palate say so ourselves!

Spaghetti in Red Wine Sauce

Course Entree
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings 6 - 8
Author Sarcastic Cooking

Ingredients

  • 4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
  • ½ Cup Diced Onion
  • 2 Cloves Garlic grated
  • 1/3 Cup All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 Bottle of Red Wine I used Cabernet Sauvignon.
  • 1, 14.5 Ounce Can Diced Tomatoes
  • 1 Teaspoon Salt
  • ½ Teaspoon Pepper
  • 1 Teaspoon Italian Seasoning
  • Pinch of Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
  • 1 Pound Spaghetti

Instructions

  1. Melt butter over medium/low heat in a large pan or Dutch oven.
  2. Add onions and cook two minutes. Add garlic, stir, and cook for one minute. Whisk in the flour until all of it is absorbed into the butter. Cook roux for one minute.
  3. Pour in the entire bottle of wine while whisking. Whisk until all the roux has broken down into the wine.
  4. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper. Mix well and bring to a simmer over medium/high heat. Simmer for an hour, stirring every so often.
  5. During the last twenty minutes of the sauce’s cook time, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the spaghetti and boil for seven minutes, then drain.
  6. When the sauce is done cooking down, using an immersion blender, blend until all tomatoes and onions are pureed and the sauce is smooth.
  7. Add the pasta to the sauce, mix, and then serve.

P.S. This is my last pasta recipe for at least two weeks, I promise!

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  • Michelle
    October 18, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    My wine unpalatableness goes so far to not even care what its paired with. I can never understand wine pairings because I feel like I never taste the nuances I’m supposed to taste to make food/wine stellar. If I like a wine, I like a wine. Period!

    This sauce looks divine!

  • Christina
    October 18, 2012 at 11:02 am

    Oooh, I see a date night recipe here!! Looks delicious! I can’t drink red wine (the tannins give me a headache), but I can sure eat it! Yum 🙂 I’ll test it out next week!

  • Stephie @ Eat Your Heart Out
    October 17, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    “I will always drink wine and think it tastes like wine, not charcoal or apple.”

    I laughed out loud (at work) at that one. Same here! (Sometimes I think those wine people are jsut making shit up to sound pretentious…and it works.)

    This looks so, so good.

    • Stefanie
      October 17, 2012 at 7:16 pm

      I agree. Nobody would ever know what charcoal tastes like!

  • DB-The Foodie Stuntman
    October 17, 2012 at 10:36 am

    I would have never thought to use a roux in my tomato sauce for pasta.

    • Stefanie
      October 17, 2012 at 7:17 pm

      The sauce I was trying to recreate is all wine so the roux is totally necessary to make the sauce the desired thickness.

  • kelsey
    October 17, 2012 at 8:44 am

    Keep the pastsa recipes coming…you’re speaking my language: carbs.

    • Stefanie
      October 17, 2012 at 9:10 am

      I am glad we speak the same language! 😉